To My Nanay, My Favorite Person

I was your favorite grandchild, and you were my favorite person. I don’t think I will ever find enough words to describe how much you meant to me.

I miss your warm hugs, your vacuum kisses, your laughter, and your free-spirited ways. I used to worry about growing old, until I watched you dance with age so gracefully. Even when health problems tried to slow you down, you never let them take away your spirit. You stood up against time, and you made growing old look beautiful.

During your last days, I held your hand without knowing that time was running out. Looking back, I wonder if you already knew. Perhaps you did, because with the strength you had left, you whispered to me your last remaining wish. I will carry those words for the rest of my life.

When they told me you had taken your last breath, something inside me collapsed. I felt the last piece of what kept me grounded disappear. I was hollow. I had lost my anchor.

I rushed to you before they took your body away. I clung to you, desperately wishing you would wake up, laugh, and hold me one more time. I have never liked showing my weakness, but losing you brought me to my knees. I let every tear fall because I couldn’t bear to pretend I was okay.

If you had asked me then what I wished for, I would have said, one more day with you.

But now, my wish is different.

Nanay, I wish you would allow me to remember you for the rest of my life. In the moments when I need you and wish you were here. As I grow older, when I find myself wondering what you were like when you were my age, what you dreamed of, what made you laugh, and how you faced the world.

And someday, when it is my turn to love someone the way you loved me, I hope I will remember you. I hope I will think of how you were as my Nanay, and perhaps find little pieces of you in the way I love.

I wish you could be here for all the chapters I have yet to live. But since you cannot, I hope I can carry you through them.

I no longer ask for another day, Nanay. I only ask that I never lose the memories of you. Let me remember you until my very last day.

Forever your favorite grandchild, and forever my favorite person.

I love you, Nanay.